5 books for « holbach paul henry th... »Edit

‎Systême de la Nature. Ou Des Loix du Monde Physique & du Monde Moral. 2 Parties. - [THE BIBLE OF MATERIALISM - PMM 215]‎

‎London [recte: Amsterdam, M.M. Rey], 1770. 8vo. Bound in two beautiful contemporary uniform full mottled calf bindings w. 5 raised bands to richly gilt back title- and tome-labels in red and green. Crcak to front- and back-hinges at top and bottom, but still tight. A bit of wear w. minor loss to capitals. Internally fresh, fine and clean with only a few brownspotted leaves. Ex libris to inside of front boards: Bibliothêque de Me Le Cte Frédéric de Pourtales. (12), 370" (4), 412 pp.‎

‎The rare first edition, first issue, of d'Holbach's main work, the main work of materialism, and one of the most important works of natural philosophy. D'Holbach (1723-1789), who was raised by a wealthy uncle, whom he inherited, together with his title of Baron, in 1753, maintained one of the most famous salons in Paris. This salon became the social and intellectual centre for the Encyclopédie, which was edited by Diderot and d'Alembert, whom he became closely connected with. D'Holbach himself also contributed decisively to the Encyclopédie, with at least 400 signed contributions, and probably as many unsigned, between 1752 and 1765. The ""Côterie holbachique"" or ""the café of Europe"", as the salon was known, attracted the most brilliant scientists, philosophers, writers and artists of the time (e.g. Diderot, d'Alembert, Helvetius, Voltaire, Hume, Sterne etc, etc.), and it became one of the most important gathering-places for the exchange of philosophical, scientific and political views under the ""ancient régime"". Apart from developing several foundational theories of seminal scientific and philosophical value, D'Holbach became known as one of the most skilled propagators and popularizers of scientific and philosophical ideas, promoting scientific progress and spreading philosophical ideas in a new and highly effective manner. D'Holbach was himself the most audacious philosophe of this circle. During the 1760's he caused numerous anticlerical tracts (written in large, but not entirely, by himself) to be clandestinely printed abroad and illegally circulated in France. His philosophical masterpiece, the ""Système de la nature, ou des lois du monde physique et du monde moral"", a methodological and intransigent affirmation of materialism and atheism, appeared anonymously in 1770."" (D.S.B. VI:468).As the theories of his main work were at least as anticlerical and unaccepted as those of his smaller tracts, and on top of that so well presented and so convincing, it would have been dangerous for him to print the ""Système de la Nature"" under his own name, and even under the name of the city or printer. Thus, the work appeared pseudonomously under the name of the secretary of the Académie Francaise, J.B. Mirabaud, who had died 10 years earlier, and under a fictive place of printing, namely London instead of Amsterdam. ""He could not publish safely under his own name, but had the ingenious idea of using the names of recently dead French authors. Thus, in 1770, his most famous book, ""The System of Nature"", appeared under the name Jean-Baptiste Mirabaud."" (PMM 215).In his main work, the monumental ""Système de la Nature"", d'Holbach presented that which was to become one of the most influential philosophical theories of the time, combined with and based on a complex of advanced scientific thought. In the present work he postulated materialism, and that on the basis of science and empiricism, on the basis of his elaborate picture of the universe as a self-created and self-creating entity that is constituted by material elements that each possess specific energies. He concludes, on the basis of empiricism and the positive truths that the science of his time had attained, that ideas such as God, immortality, creation etc. must be either contradictory or futile, and as such, his materialism naturally also propounded atheism, and his theory of the universe showed that nature is the product of matter (eternally in motion and arranged in accordance with mechanical laws), and that reality is nothing but nature.The work had a sensational impact. For the first time, philosophical materialism is presented in an actual system, a fact which became essential to the influence and spreading of this atheistic scientific-philosophical strand. D'Holbach had created a work that dared unite the essence of all the essential material of the English and French Enlightenment and incorporate it into a closed materialistic system"" and on the basis of a completely materialistic and atheistic foundation, he provided the modern world with a moral and ethic philosophy. The effects of the work were tremendous, and the consequences of its success were immeasurable, thus, already in the year of its publication, the work was condemned to burning by the Parisian parliament, making the first edition of the work a great scarcity. In spite of its condemnation, and in spite of the reluctance of contemporary writers to acknowledge the work as dangerous (as Goethe said in ""Dichtung und Wahrheit"": ""Wir begriffen nicht, wie ein solches Buch gefährlich sein könnte. Es kam uns so grau, so todtenhaft vor""), the ""Systême de la Nature"" and d'Holbach's materialism continued its influence on philosophic, political and scientific thought. In fact, it was this materialism that for Marx became the social basis of communism.""In the ""Système"" Holbach rejected the Cartesian mind-body dualism and attempted to explain all phenomena, physical and mental, in terms of matter in motion. He derived the moral and intellectual faculties from man's sensibility to impressions made by the external world, and saw human actions as entirely determined by pleasure and pain. He continued his direct attack on religion by attempting to show that it derived entirely from habit and custom. But the Systeme was not a negative or destructive book: Holbach rejected religion because he saw it as a wholly harmful influence, and he tried to supply a more desirable alternative. ""(Printing and the Mind of Man, 215).""In keeping with such a naturalistic conception of tings, d'Holbach outlined an anticreationalist cosmology and a nondiluvian geology. He proposed a transformistic hypothesis regarding the origins of the animal species, including man, and described the successive changes, or new emergences, of organic beings as a function of ecology, that is, of the geological transformation of the earth itself and of its life-sustaining environment. While all this remained admittedly on the level of vague conjecture, the relative originality and long-term promise of such a hypothesis -which had previously been broached only by maillet, Maupertuis, and Diderot- were of genuine importance to the history of science. Furthermore, inasmuch as the principles of d'Holbach's mechanistic philosophy ruled out any fundamental distinction between living an nonliving aggregates of matter, his biology took basic issue with both the animism and the vitalism current among his contemporaries...This closely knit scheme of theories and hypotheses served not merely to liberate eighteenth-century science from various theological and metaphysical empediments, but it also anticipated several of the major directions in which more than one science was later to evolve. Notwithstanding suchprecursors as Hobbes, La Mttrie, and Diderot, d'Holbach was perhaps the first to argue unequivocally and uncompromisingly that the only philosophical attitude consistent with modern science must be at once naturalistic and antisupernatural."" (D.S.B. VI:469).‎

‎La contagion sacrée ou Histoire naturelle de la superstition. Ouvrage traduit de l'anglais.‎

‎Londres [i. e. Amsterdam] : Marc-Michel Rey, 1768 Deux tomes en un volume in-12, (2)-X-169-(4)-184 pages. Veau moucheté de l'époque, dos à nerfs orné.‎

‎Dos et plats légèrement frottés. Mors fendu au premier plat. Première édition de ce brûlot contre la religion. "L'homme n'est superstitieux que parce qu'il est craintif ; il ne craint que parce qu'il est ignorant". Matérialiste athée, célèbre pour ses dîners philosophiques, Paul Henri Thiry (1723-1789), baron d'Holbach, s'opposa à toutes les doctrines religieuses, considérées comme des instruments du despotisme. La hardiesse de ses idées l'obligea à publier sous divers noms d'emprunt. "Cet ouvrage est réellement de la composition du baron d'Holbach. C'est pour se soustraire, lui et ses amis, à tout genre de désagrément qu'il a annoncé dans l'avertissement l'avoir traduit de l'anglais de Jean Tranchard et Th. Gordon." (Caillet)La Contagion sacrée fut condamnée par le Parlement le 18 juillet 1770 à "être lacérée et brûlée", et mise à l'index en 1821. Barbier I, 739 ; Cioranescu 34033 ; Caillet II, 5215 ; Tchemerzine III, 717 ; Vercruysse 1768-A2.‎

‎Système social, ou principes naturels de la morale et de la politique, avec un examen de l'influence du gouvernement sur les moeurs. Par l'Auteur du Systême de la Nature [Mirabaud]. 3 Tomes. - [THE SYSTEM OF NATURE CONTINUED... THE SOCIAL SYSTEM]‎

‎London [recte: Amsterdam, M.M. Rey], 1773. 8vo. Bound in one beautiful contemporary full mottled calf binding with five raised bands to richly gilt spine triple gilt line-borders to boards and inner gilt dentelles. Edges of boards with single gilt line. All edges gilt. Corners abit bumped and a bit of overall wear. Inner hinges a bit weak. Internally very fine and clean. All in all a very fine copy indeed. (4), 210176" 167 pp. With all three half-titles, all three title-pages and all three indexes, as well as the introduction.‎

‎The rare first edition, first issue (though Tchermerzine mentions an unknown 2-volume-edition form the same year - this edition has never been verified), of one of d'Holbach's most important works, his influential ""social"" and political continuation of his seminal main work ""Systeme de la nature"" - the bible of materialism. D'Holbach (1723-1789), who was raised by a wealthy uncle, whom he inherited, together with his title of Baron, in 1753, maintained one of the most famous salons in Paris. This salon became the social and intellectual centre for the Encyclopédie, which was edited by Diderot and d'Alembert, whom he became closely connected with. D'Holbach himself also contributed decisively to the Encyclopédie, with at least 400 signed contributions, and probably as many unsigned, between 1752 and 1765. The ""Côterie holbachique"" or ""the café of Europe"", as the salon was known, attracted the most brilliant scientists, philosophers, writers and artists of the time (e.g. Diderot, d'Alembert, Helvetius, Voltaire, Hume, Sterne etc, etc.), and it became one of the most important gathering-places for the exchange of philosophical, scientific and political views under the ""ancient régime"". Apart from developing several foundational theories of seminal scientific and philosophical value, D'Holbach became known as one of the most skilled propagators and popularizers of scientific and philosophical ideas, promoting scientific progress and spreading philosophical ideas in a new and highly effective manner. D'Holbach was himself the most audacious philosophe of this circle. During the 1760's he caused numerous anticlerical tracts (written in large, but not entirely, by himself) to be clandestinely printed abroad and illegally circulated in France. His philosophical masterpiece, the ""Système de la nature, ou des lois du monde physique et du monde moral"", a methodological and intransigent affirmation of materialism and atheism, appeared anonymously in 1770"" (D.S.B. VI:468), as did the social and political follow-up of it, the famous ""Systême social"" in 1773. That is to say, Mirabeau whom he had used as the author on the ""System of Nature"" in 1770 is not mentioned in the ""Social System"", on the title-page of which is merely stated ""By the Author of ""Systême de la Nature"". As the theories of d'Holbach's two systematic works were at least as anticlerical and unaccepted as those of his smaller tracts, and on top of that so well presented and so convincing, it would have been dangerous for him to print any of them under his own name, and even under the name of the city or printer. Thus, ""Systême de la Nature"" appeared pseudonomously under the name of the secretary of the Académie Francaise, J.B. Mirabaud, who had died 10 years earlier, and under a fictive place of printing, namely London instead of Amsterdam. ""He could not publish safely under his own name, but had the ingenious idea of using the names of recently dead French authors. Thus, in 1770, his most famous book, ""The System of Nature"", appeared under the name Jean-Baptiste Mirabaud."" (PMM 215), and so the next ""System"" also appeared in the same manner three years later.In his ""Systême de la Nature"", d'Holbach had presented philosophical materialism in an actual system for the first time and had created a work that dared unite the essence of all the essential material of the English and French Enlightenment and incorporate it into a closed materialistic system"" on the basis of a completely materialistic and atheistic foundation, he provided the modern world with a moral and ethic philosophy, the effects of which were tremendous. It is this materialism and atheism that he continues three years later in his next systematic work ""Systême social"", through which politics, morality, and sociology are also incorporated into his system and take the place of the Christianity that he had so fiercely attacked earlier on. In this great work he extends his ethical views to the state and continues the description of human interest from ""Systême de la Nature"" by developing a notion of the just state (by d'Holbach calle ""ethocracy"") that is to secure general welfare. ""Système social (1773"" ""Social System"") placed morality and politics in a utilitarian framework wherein duty became prudent self-interest."" (Encyclopaedia Brittanica). ""Holbach's foundational view is that the most valuable thing a person seeking self-preservation can do is to unite with another person: ""Man is of all beings the most necessary to man"" (Sysème social, 76"" cf. Spinoza's Ethics IVP35C1, C2, and S). Society, when it is just, unites for the common purpose of preservation and the securing of welfare, and society contracts with government for this purpose."" (SEP).As the ""Systême de la Nature"" had been condemned to burning in the year of its publication, so the ""Systême social"" was on the list of books to be confiscated already in 1773, and it was placed on the Index of the Church in August 1775. As the ""Systême de la Nature"", the ""Systême social"" is thus also of great scarcity. Another edition of the work appeared later the same year, in 12mo. Tchermerzine says that ""Il ya une édition, que nous ne connaissons pas, en 2 vol. in-8. C'est sans doute l'originale."" The present edition was reprinted the following year, in 1774.Tschermerzine VI:246" Graesse III:317 Barbier IV:622 (only listing later editions).‎

‎Systême social, ou Principes naturels de la morale et de la politique. De l'influence du gouvernement sur les mœurs.‎

‎ 1795 Paris, Servière, 1795. 2 vol. in-8, demi-veau havane, roulette palmée à froid le long du dos et plats de papier bleu quadrillé, dos lisse orné en long, tranches marbrées (Rel. de l'époque).Nouvelle édition de ce traité politique, paru anonymement pour la première fois en 1773, et exposant le fonctionnement d'une société utopique, naturellement vertueuse et bienveillante. Avec le Système de la nature (1770), puis Le Bon sens (1772), cet ouvrage, comme toute l'oeuvre d'Holbach, participa à la préparation de la Révolution. N'oublions pas qu'avant tout savant et érudit, il composa pour l'Encyclopédie 376 articles en minéralogie, métallurgie et chimie, et resta un ami fidèle de Diderot.Agréable exemplaire.Quelques rousseurs pâles, petites taches sur les plats, restaurations à une coiffe et aux coins. ‎

4 Images

‎Système de la nature ou Les Loix du Monde Physique, et du Monde Moral, par M. Mirabaud, Secrétaire Perpétuel et l'un des Quarante de l'Académie Françoise. 2 volumes, complet‎

‎Sans nom (Amsterdam, Marc-Michel Rey) Londres 1770 Année de l'Originale (sans les errata), soit 2 volumes en in-12 reliés de (vj+362)(399) pages comprenant notamment la préface de l'auteur. Ensemble en plein veau avec plats mosaïqués, dos à 5 nerfs, caissons ornées de motifs floraux dorés, toutes tranches sanguines. T.I: coiffe de tête partiellement manquante, t.II: coiffe de tête manquante, bas du premier mors et haut du second fendus, un petit accident à la p.325 sans gêne pour le texte. Les chasses sont frottés par endroits. Cet ensemble reste solide, l'intérieur est d'une très bonne fraîcheur. Bon état de l'ensemble vu l'époque. Dans son uvre majeure et synthétique, Holbach détache la morale de tout principe religieux pour la déduire des seuls principes naturels. Il soutient lathéisme contre toute conception religieuse, déiste ou matérialiste. Le retentissement fut énorme: le gouvernement le défère au parlement qui condamne le livre, le 18 août 1770 à être brûlé au pied du grand escalier du palais. De nombreux livres vont être ensuite publiés pour réfuter les thèses du Système de la nature.‎

5 Images